The Battle of Urona Sigma took place in 2502. It conflated the conflict between Raynor's Raiders and the protoss against the zerg with internal Terran Dominion attempts to eliminate Jim Raynor.[1]
Background[]
By 2500, Terran Confederacy official Tamsen Cauley came to believe the Confederacy, which was engaged in a war with the Sons of Korhal rebel movement, was doomed to defeat unless the rebel leader, General Arcturus Mengsk, was eliminated.
Cauley used a team of non-neurally resocialized ex-criminals, the War Pigs, as soldiers. They were directed to assassinate Mengsk at Atticus Minor. However, the plan failed.
Cauley then swiftly switched sides to the Sons of Korhal. However, fearing Mengsk's reactions to his assassination attempt, he resolved to eliminate the only group which could implicate him—the War Pigs. Cauley utilized another team, the resocialized Cerberus Program, to eliminate the War Pigs, but they were unsuccessful, and the War Pigs went into hiding.
Two years later, Cauley had become an important Terran Dominion official, the head of the Dominion Internal Security Division. Due to a passing comment made by Mengsk, Cauley again worried about the War Pigs. He met captured War Pig Cole Hickson at New Folsom Prison.[2]
Cauley decided to use Hickson to lure the rest of the War Pigs into the open, where the Cerberus Program would eliminate them. To this end, he subjected Hickson to a subconscious form of neural resocialization.[3] Hickson would lure the team with a job offer—if they eliminated Jim Raynor within a certain time frame, they would have their criminal records cleared.[2]
The War Pigs were stealthily followed by Cerberus Program troops led by Lars Trakken, who unlike other members of the program, had not been resocialized. The Cerberus troops would attack the War Pigs and Jim Raynor when the opportunity presented itself.[4] Cauley believed this plan would increase his own power within the Dominion.[2] However, Trakken had a personal history with Hickson, which affected his judgment.[4]
Prelude[]
The War Pigs pursued various leads while hunting down Jim Raynor. One member, Romy Pyrius, came across a xel'naga artifact during the journeys, which drew the attention of a trio of Dark Templar. When the protoss took the artifact with them, they also read the minds of the War Pigs, warning them not to harm Raynor.[5]
Raynor's Raiders hid in an underwater cave on Urona Sigma, which had been infested by the zerg.[3] The protoss believed the fight against the zerg there was hopeless, so the previous Dark Templar trio arrived there to warn him about an impending purification operation[6] as well as the attack by the War Pigs.[3]
Course of the Battle[]
The War Pigs, unknowingly pursued by Cerberus Program forces under the command of Lars Trakken, tracked Raynor's location to Urona Sigma. The War Pigs waited until Raynor's Raiders revealed themselves through dropship flights. Four War Pigs, led by Cole Hickson, landed at the last known location of the dropships—a sea cliff, while Nuura Joss continued to pilot the General Lee in orbit.[3]
The War Pigs were attacked by the zerg and jumped into the sea, where they discovered the dropships. From there, they entered the hidden Raiders lair. However, the Raiders knew they were coming, ambushed them and ordered their surrender. The War Pigs complied. Cole Hickson was an old friend of Raynor, who trusted him, but Hickson had been modified by neural resocialization to assassinate Raynor on the orders of Tamsen Cauley.[3]
Hickson's first murder attempt failed due to the zerg discovering the Raiders' hideout, but this enabled him to escape, and separated Raynor from his dropships. Raynor was cut off from his own men, along with the War Pigs. Simultaneous attacks by Cerberus Program forces led by Lars Trakken cut the War Pigs off from their own transport vessel. Trakken personally boarded the General Lee but failed to kill Joss, who escaped.[6]
The unlikely alliance made an escape, where they met up with Nuura Joss. However, Hickson got the drop on Raynor. Raynor managed to subdue Hickson when the latter tried to kill him again, but Raynor and the War Pigs found themselves stranded on Urona Sigma as the purification operation began.[6] The beams away from them (and away from the heaviest zerg concentrations). However, Lars Trakken was unable to overcome his rage at Hickson and descended in a dropship with a squad of Cerberus troops. Raynor and the War Pigs fooled and defeated them, stealing the dropship and escaping, but at the cost of one of the War Pigs. The protoss, meanwhile, had only conducted a partial purification of Urona Sigma.[1]
References[]
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